Man reportedly tried to enter police station shouting Allahu Akbar on the
anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attack

French police are seen near a police station in the Rue de la Goutte d'Or near Barbes-Rochechouart metro station in the north of Paris after police shot a man dead as he was trying to enter the police station.Photo: AFP

The assailant, described as “threatening” by police sources, was gunned down as he tried to force his way into the police station of Paris’ 18th arrondissement. He was found to be wearing a pouch taped to his coat with wires dangling from it. However, it later proved to be a “fake” suicide belt.

He was named by French media as Sallah Ali, a 20-year old homeless Moroccan born in Casablanca in 1995.

His finger prints matched those of a man arrested for theft in 2013 in southern France.

A man shot dead in front of a police station is searched by a anti-explosive robot Photo: AFP

A scrap of paper found on his body said he wanted to act "to avenge the dead in Syria" and the man had "pledged allegiance to Isil", according to sources close to the inquiry.

Christiane Taubira, the French justice minister, said the fake belt and nature of his written claims suggested he was "unstable".

She said there was a "heavy atmosphere in France in which unstable people" can be prompted to take violent action.

Police ordered passers-by to take shelter in shops in the road and stores were closed. Children were confined to the nearby school while bomb disposal experts and dogs combed the street to search for booby trapped vehicles. Stretches of nearby Paris metro lines were also briefly closed.

“I heard something like four shots,” Lydie Quentin, president of local association A la Goutte-d’Or, situated near the police station. “I opened the door and the police asked me not to come out. That’s the only thing they asked us to do. Around here, all the shops have closed,” she told Le Monde.

The dead suspect reportedly had "no papers on him" and has not been identified.

An armed French police officer patrols at the Boulevard de Barbes in the north of Paris Photo: AFP

French authorities said Salim Benghalem, 35, was the leader of the so-called Buttes-Chaumont terrorist network that included Said and Cherif Kouachi, the brothers responsible for the deadly Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in January.

He has also been linked to Mehdi Nemmouche, the gunman suspected of opening fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people in May 2014.

Six other IS foreign fighters were given sentences of between six and nine years.

Mr Hollande said officers die in the line of duty "so that we can live free".

Following the January attacks, the government announced it planned to give police better equipment and hire more intelligence agents.

France has been on high alert ever since, and was struck again November 13 by extremists in attacks claimed by Isil that killed 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall and in bars and restaurants.

A man shot dead in front of a police station is searched by a anti-explosive robot Photo: AFP

Since then it has been in a state of emergency, meaning authorities have sweeping powers to search houses and vehicles and arrest suspects.

In a New Year’s address to France’s security forces at Paris’ police headquarters, Mr Hollande told them that any attack on a policeman, gendarme or fireman was not just a crime but “an attack on the Republic”.

Describing 2015 as a “terrible” and “tragic” year, he said told forces that he would present next month a bill extending their powers to “respond to the challenges we face”, including the rules of armed engagement with terrorists.

The apparent attack came a little over a year after Bertrand Nzohabonayo, a 20-year old jihadist, injured three officers in a police station in Joué-les-Tours in the central Indre-et-Loire region while shouting Allahou Akbar and was shot dead.

French security forces are on tenterhooks since the November killings amid fears of fresh attacks.

French police secure the area after a man was shot dead at a police station in the 18th district in Paris, France January 7, 2016. Police in Paris on Thursday shot dead a knife-wielding man who tried to enter a police station, police union sources said. The incident took place on the anniversary of last year's deadly Islamist militant attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in the French capital.

In December, Paris police say officers opened fire on a car that rammed the entry to France's Les Invalides monument, stopping the vehicle, before arresting the driver.

A gendarme fired around 10 shots when the driver refused to stop.

On January 1, soldiers guarding a mosque in Valence, southern France, opened fire on a motorist who tried to ram them, seriously injuring the Tunisian-born assailant.

For years, al Qaeda and Isil have urged recruits to attack without awaiting precise orders France and other Western countries, providing a list of precise targets – chief among them police and military officers, followed by politicians and symbolic places of power. Isil has also recently told followers to attack “secular” state schools.

Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, Isil spokesman, called on followers to strike such targets with weapons of war or hunting rifles, knives, home-made bombs, or by spreading poison or using a vehicle as a weapon.